The British Medical Association (BMA) has warned against public “scaremongering” over the current flu outbreak as its members vote on whether to carry out planned strikes in England next week.
It comes after Health Secretary Wes Streeting said he was “extremely worried” about the “double whammy” of rising numbers of flu patients in hospitals and forthcoming resident doctor strikes.
BMA resident doctors committee chair Dr Jack Fletcher said that while the union was not “diminishing” the impact of flu, Streeting “should not be scaremongering the public into thinking that the NHS will not be able to look after them.”
The result of a BMA ballot is due on Monday. If it is rejected, a five-day strike will begin on Wednesday.
The government says a deal offers legislation that prioritises British medical graduates for specialty training jobs starting next year and offers to cover the costs of training expenses such as exam fees.
The deal does not include a pay rise. Writing in the Guardian, Sir Keir said pay for resident doctors – the new name for junior doctors – has increased by 28.9% over the past three years.
In a statement released on Saturday morning, the BMA called on the health secretary to “focus his time and attention on offering a deal that will stop next week’s strikes going ahead, rather than making claims that strike action could cause the NHS to collapse.”
The BMA has written to chief executives of NHS Trusts in England saying it recognised that, in the event of a strike, resident doctors may be required to return to work to “maintain safe patient care”.
The letter, signed by BMA council chair Dr Tom Dolphin, says: “As doctors, we at the BMA wish to ensure that patients remain safe”.
Speaking to LBC earlier this week, Streeting said the current situation was “probably the worst pressure the NHS has faced since Covid”.
He questioned why the BMA hadn’t taken up his offer of pushing the strike back to January “if they wanted to just give me a kicking”.
“I can only assume that the reason why they refuse to do that is because they know that this week will be most painful for the NHS,” he added.
Echoing the health secretary, the prime minister said the “reckless” strikes “should not happen” while the NHS is facing its “most precarious moment since the pandemic”.
Writing in the Guardian on Friday, Sir Keir Starmer said the BMA had been sent a new offer as well as a chance to reschedule the strikes until after Christmas.
“Don’t get me wrong – of course I would rather they were cancelled… But under the circumstances, I wanted to be sure we have left no stone unturned in our efforts to protect the NHS,” he said.
The BMA said it will ask its members whether the government’s offer will be enough to call off Wednesday’s strikes.
If members indicate yes, then they will be given time to consider the offer in more detail and a formal follow-up referendum would be held on ending the dispute completely.
Some experts say flu has come early this winter, and it looks to be a particularly nasty season because of a new mutated version of the virus which is circulating.
Many are calling it “super flu”, but it is not more severe nor harder to treat.
An average of 2,660 patients per day were in hospital with flu in England last week – the highest for this time of the year since records began in 2021, and up 55% on the week before, NHS England said.
It is important to note that the records only date back to 2021 and so do not capture the two worst flu seasons of the past 15 years, which were seen in 2014-15 and 2017-18.
Flu cases are also rising in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, figures show.
However, the medical director for the NHS in London, Chris Streather, said the flu situation was “well within the boundaries” of what the NHS could cope with and that hospitals were better prepared for large disease outbreaks since the Covid pandemic.
Speculation is probably not helpful and can cause people to worry, he added.
